Genesis
by Hyliian
Summary: "A virus does not feel. It does not think. It does not plan. It simply is. Actions and reactions. Instinct." My attempt at tackling a character as complex as Alex Mercer. Connected one-shots that may or may not create a cohesive whole.
1. Prologue

_**Prototype **does not belong to me, unfortunately. That honor goes to Activision and all those other lovely logos that pop up on screen._

* * *

Lieutenant John Rogers really hated this job. It wasn't so much the gruesome pustules of biomass clinging to every conceivable surface, the rotted stench of flesh and decay, or even the mutated Infected throwing themselves at his men like a haphazard, deadly battering ram. It wasn't even those Blackwatch lunatics descending on the crippled island of Manhattan like a flock of damn vultures, bringing with them high-level clearance and gizmos and gadgets and intelligence wrapped up in so much red tap he was surprised no one had tripped over it all, although the lot of them could probably do with a good old-fashioned punch to the face.

He might not be a scientist living it up in some fancy-shmancy lab with needles and tools with names he couldn't ever hope to pronounce, but even _he_ knew that messing with bioweapons and then _letting them escape_ was a Bad Idea. He couldn't claim to understand the reasoning behind it, or even how it worked. All he knew was someone, somehow, had let a virus loose in Penn Station and that virus was not content to simply stay in the air where it belonged.

No, it had to mutate people into… into _these_; Hunters and Walkers and citizens with barely enough brain power left to stumble in a relatively straight line towards them like zombies. It clung to walls, it dug tendrils into the subway system beneath their feet, ready to erupt into a spiked tentacle of death that the Blackwatch men insisted on naming Hydras, although all Rogers cared about was getting the hell away from them the moment they shot up from the pavement.

The first few weeks had been the worst, back when the Infected were _organized_. He'd lost count of how many good men had died in that first initial wave, before they'd known exactly what it was they were dealing with. When the brass had told them they had an outbreak of a lethal virus to contain, the very last thing on his mind had been walking monsters straight out of a horror film. Blackwatch had been stingy and protective of what little they knew about it, although from what he could gather, they'd called the Outbreak _Redlight_ and it had something to do with Gentek.

But none of that made him hate his job. He was a soldier, and he was used to waking up every morning wondering if today was the day his luck would run out and he'd be dragged off to a Hive or torn apart on the battlefield. He could really sum up the entirety of his desperation and growing unease in two words.

Alex Mercer.

Codename: ZEUS, Mercer was an unknown variable in a warzone Rogers knew almost nothing about. And that made him dangerous. At first, it had only been rumors among the men, whispers of a man who could _run up the side of buildings_ and _throw taxis_ at helicopters, tearing apart the Hunters as if they were paper and vanishing as quickly as he'd come. Lieutenant Rogers had passed it off as absolutely ridiculous, a fantasy concocted by one of the soldiers under his command, or maybe an idea planted there by one of those Blackwatch loons.

And then everything had gone to hell in a hand basket.

It was routine, as much as shelling out artillery into a corrupted Hive until it crumbled could be considered routine; he'd had the tanks all set up, an air strike was en route, and his men were actually holding their own for once. An explosion cracked over the sound of mortar and flame and one of his tanks _flew_ over his head and slammed into the side of the Hive, the snap of rocks breaking and the unholy squelching of the biomass on the walls the only sound as everyone paused to stare.

Lieutenant John Rogers had seen a lot of crazy things in his lifetime. Flying tanks, though… nothing he knew of could have done that short of an act of God Himself. And just as suddenly as the silence had fallen, it was broken by the howling of a Hunter and there was no time to wonder at exploding machinery or the fact that the radio chatter had become frantic and panicked and _where was that damn air support?_

It only took him a moment to realize the Hunters were no longer focusing on his marines. They had broken off to charge up a nearby building in an unnerving display of synchronization, and then suddenly they were just _dead_. He'd seen a blur of motion, of dark grey and impossible crimson, and the Hunters had been severed neatly in two, the pieces falling back to earth with anticlimactic _thumps_.

It took his marines three full clips to bring down a single Hunter. Something on that roof had just taken out four of them. At _once_.

He didn't have time to consider that before the blur leapt from the building, a full ten stories if not more, and impacted the ground like a sledgehammer, knocking aside man and beast alike until nothing was left but a crater in the asphalt. Someone in his squad yelled out a warning that sounded like _"ZEUS has made contact!"_ before every marine in the unit turned and unloaded everything they had at the figure kneeling in its impact site.

Lieutenant Rogers had just enough time to snap at his men to _quit shooting at empty space and eliminate that Hive, damn it_ before the following command died in his throat. That figure in the crater, the one that had just torn apart a group of Hunters and then fallen ten stories with enough force to crack the pavement, was standing amidst the smoke and carnage, body jerking as the bullets hit it but otherwise remaining motionless. Its entire left arm was nothing but a massive blade, spiked with black and dripping crimson, but it was _human._ There was no mistaking that humanoid figure, or the grey hoodie and black jacket.

Between one breath and the next, the thing had leapt clear of the crater and bore one of the soldiers to the asphalt, ripping him in half with that massive blade and turning before either piece had even hit the ground. What followed was not a fight.

It was slaughter.

Gunfire turned to screams and incoherent pleas as the… _thing_ tore them all apart without uttering a single sound, inhuman in its silence. Rogers unloaded his own assault rifle into the creature's back, doing nothing but earning him an irritated flick of that huge bladed arm and a cursory glance in his direction. Electric blue eyes locked on his for a single heartbeat, and then it was suddenly _right there_. Faster than the eye could follow, a mere suggestion of a blur, the creature had cleared the distance between them and a lance of white-hot agony shot through his abdomen.

Rogers choked and coughed up blood as he looked down at the huge blade speared through his midsection and erupting out his back. He met the creature's inhuman blue eyes again and pushed vainly against the arm that had run him through. There was no human emotion in those eyes. No compassion, no regret, no pity. Only satisfaction. A primal hunger that had no place on a human face. He was staring into the eyes of a predator.

Idly he realized the field had fallen silent as he coughed and tried to breathe through the blood threatening to drown him, and barely felt the creature's other arm go around his shoulders in a mocking semblance of an embrace. He felt fingers crawling across his skin, blurred vision recognizing the black and crimson tendrils unique to the Infected as they spread across his frame.

He could feel them _inside_, spreading from the blade he was impaled upon, and he couldn't make his throat voice the yell he was screaming in his own mind. Those ice blue eyes never left his, never wavered, as Rogers shuddered and struggled for a single breath.

The creature—_ZEUS, Alex Mercer_—pulled him impossibly closer and he could see nothing but those eyes, even when the tendrils spread across his face and suffocated him. For an instant, he could hear a thousand voices, whispering in a single discordant chord of sound, before the world collapsed in on itself and he heard only silence.

* * *

He had felt something, once, when he'd consumed his first Blackwatch soldier. Horror, revulsion, disgust… until his body had shuddered in relief and cried out for _more_, and he'd found himself leaping at the next man he saw and tearing him apart like the animal he was. It had felt so _good_, soothing an ache he hadn't known was there, and nothing existed except for _hunger, fight, consume._ And then he'd crumpled to the ground, holding his head in agony as someone took an ice pick to the back of his brain, and memories not his own flooded him.

He could still hear them, sometimes, when it was quiet. Whispers, echoes of a thousand lives he'd never lived but could recall in acute detail. Sometimes, when he's in the midst of battle, blades and claws rending flesh and muscle, he forgets whether the screams come from his head or his prey.

It doesn't bother him that much anymore. It is what he is. What he was _made_ for. He could no more deny his instinct's drive to _hunt_ and _feed_ than any human man could deny the urge to breathe.

He reveled in the chase, the exhilaration of tracking his prey and seeing that final spark of hope die in their eyes once they realize they've been caught. The knowledge that _he_ was the apex predator, that nothing could stand before him and still draw breath… it was addicting. He was willing to admit he took a sadistic sort of satisfaction in consuming humans that he simply lacked while hunting Infected. It was different somehow; more thrilling, more fulfilling when his prey has the capability to fight back, to struggle, to weep, to beg, to claw at his face and kick at him as he drains them of everything that makes them human.

He chooses to call himself Alex Mercer, because that is the face he most often wears and the first body he'd consumed.

Alex Mercer had been a terrorist. A monster.

Now he was a monster in every sense of the word.

An Outbreak of Redlight had condemned Manhattan to a slow, corrupted death. A virus wearing human skin had saved it. As far as Blackwatch and the military were concerned, the entire epidemic was his fault.

And it was. In a way.

It had been Alex Mercer, the _original_ Alex Mercer, who'd unleashed the strain in Penn Station, killing hundreds, if not thousands, in mere minutes, and countless others over the next eighteen days. He carried no guilt for the act, no shame, but he _remembered_ having done it, and that was enough. It had been Alex Mercer who signed New York's death warrant, a final spit in the eye before he was shot down and Blacklight—_ZEUS—_rose to take his place.

When he'd first woken in the morgue and received his first hint towards what had happened, he had planned his revenge. He would make Blackwatch and Gentek pay for what they'd done to him—to _Alex_, even if he had to raze the city around him to do so. As he consumed more and more agents and doctors and learned more about his situation, the need for revenge tapered away into something vaguely disquieted. He still wanted to slaughter them and paint the walls with their blood, but it was more a general desire for death rather than a lust for vengeance. Revenge was a human concept, and it had become rapidly apparent that human he was not. A virus does not _feel_. It does not _think_. It does not _plan_. It simply _is_. Actions and reactions. Instinct.

He struck back because they'd struck first, rage accumulated from a plethora of consumed marines and soldiers roiling at the injustice at it all, burning just beneath his skin. He carved a swath of devastation and gore through their ranks, sundering buildings and tearing down bases and Hives as he crossed them.

He isn't sure why he risked his own life to detonate the nuclear bomb away from Manhattan, where it would do the least damage. He isn't sure what drove him to put the safety of others before himself. He could have survived the blast, even if the rest of the island was reduced to glass as a result. His continued existence was proof of that. Perhaps it was because Dana was on that island. The only tangible link to humanity he still had.

Perhaps he was more human than he'd thought.

But he was a virus. It was in his blood—so to speak—to adapt, to change, to _evolve_, and if becoming more human was how he could do so, then so be it.

Alex lifted his head and stared out at the ever-present blockade quarantining the island. Blackwatch could never hold him if he really put his mind to escaping, but he had no desire to do so. He had everything he needed here in Manhattan: prey, places to hide and run and _hunt_, a home he could return to should he feel the need.

And Dana.

Alex shifted bright blue eyes in the direction of Ragland's makeshift morgue. He checked on her whenever he found himself in the area, still unsure why he bothered. She was never any different, still comatose and pale. Greene's cryptic warning still unnerved him, as much as it was possible for him to be unnerved. _She is with us now._ Dana wasn't Infected. He'd made sure to check before he'd brought her to Ragland.

He didn't care much what happened to the city or the people in it, so long as there were still enough for him to live off of without having to force his way into military bases to do so, but some part of him felt that he _should_. He _should_ care, and it was enough to make him stay. Blackwatch had made him to be a bioweapon, a thing to be used and discarded. But he was more than that. He was Blacklight. DX-1118 C. ZEUS. Alex Mercer. Elizabeth Greene. John Rogers. He was everyone and everything he had ever touched.

Slightly less than human, but also so much more.

* * *

**A/N: **_I just got Prototype a few days ago and I loved it. I immediately pranced over to the fanfic section over yonder and consumed (heh) my fair share of stories. I thought it might be fun to give it a shot! If you've read anything else of mine, you know things like "plot" and "continuity" don't mean snit giggles to me, so I don't honestly know where this will go (if anywhere). But! I just loved Alex as a character, and who wouldn't jump at the chance to give writing him a shot?_


	2. 1 To Be Human

Alex wasn't entirely sure what he was doing here, crouched on top of a military base, just… watching. They had no idea he was there, that their lives literally hung on his whim. It would take so little effort to just drop from the roof and tear into them with serrated claws, painting the walls with blood as he put the fear of Blacklight into them. But he didn't.

He just sat. And listened. He could hear every heartbeat, every breath, every muttered comment and nervous twitch as the soldiers went about their business on a rotation like clockwork. There were always two guards at either entrance, one with a rocket launcher and one with an assault rifle. There was always a single Commander, shaking in his boots as he made the rounds outside the base. Alex grinned.

The Commanders had become nervous wrecks over the past few weeks. Few of them lived long after being posted to the Manhattan area, seeing as how Alex needed to consume them in order to access the base. He was surprised no one had seemed to connect the dots and made it more difficult to get inside. This base, he knew, held nothing of interest for him. He'd poked around a few days back and come away with nothing but the familiar gnawing hunger and a few grenades for his trouble.

Alex listened as the guards to his left began to whisper under their breath, their voices loud as if they stood at his side despite the great distance between them. He considered dropping down and joining them, letting the Blackwatch uniform shimmer over his skin with tendrils of ink and flame, but discarded the notion and remained where he was. Infiltrating the bases was becoming more trouble than they were worth.

He shot a glare towards the nearest viral detector and resigned himself to an uneventful day of people-watching. Since he'd consumed Elizabeth Greene, the Infected Zones had become more and more scarce, and now when Hunters showed up they arrived in groups of one or two, rather than four or five. Hardly a challenge for someone—some_thing_—like Alex Mercer. Very little was a challenge for him now. He was constantly adapting, changing, shifting to give him a continuous edge over the military that hounded him. They could never hope to keep up with him, yet they continued to try and pin him down and haul him away.

What did they intend to do if they _did_ capture him, he wondered? When he'd allowed himself to be taken away in order to get to McMullen, breaking free and finding the man in his lab had been child's play. Were the humans so arrogant to assume they held any sort of control over him?

He was _Blacklight_, the virus plaguing Manhattan in the wake of Redlight's fading. The military may as well have been children playing war for all the good they'd do if it ever came to a real fight between them. It seemed excessive and wasteful to continuously rip the army apart as they threw themselves into his claws or onto his blade, so he tended to evade them as often as he stood and fought.

Blackwatch, though… he always stayed if Blackwatch came. _They_ were a disease—he appreciated the irony—that needed to be burned away so the city could heal, rather than continue to fester. Not that he cared, but if the city fell apart around him he would have to find a new place to live. He'd become used to Manhattan and its towering skyscrapers, dark back alleys, all those shadows and cubbies he could use to duck out of sight and blend seamlessly into the crowd. The perfect hunter.

As Alex watched the two marines chatting away, he wondered if he had ever been like them. If he had ever stood by a door, just… _talking._ He had no one to talk to but himself and the voices in his head, not since he'd stopped visiting Ragland so the doctor could work. But of course he'd never been like them.

He had never been human in the first place.

The scattered and jagged images that flitted across the back of his subconscious were all that remained of Dr. Alex Mercer. A voice, the touch of skin on bare skin, the feeling of eyes on his back even in an empty room. Little remained of the man he used to be; just another whisper in the chorus, slightly hoarser than the rest from all the screaming.

The other, newer memories from those he'd recently consumed, stayed at the forefront for a few days at most, before drifting back into the writhing mass of hate and venom that comprised his existence. This most recent, John Rogers, had spoken like that to the other marines. He had spent time guarding doors and talking, as if a murderous virus was not crouching above them on the roof like an Infected hawk.

Alex stood and leapt across the street to the high-rise across the way, scaling the slick wall with ease, perching on the lip of its roof and glancing again at the quiet base. If he so much as showed his face, even for something as harmless as a simple conversation, that silence would be shattered by the wail of klaxons and the scream of helicopters and the low grumble of tanks. The only way he could ever be even remotely human was if he took another's skin.

Like a parasite. But wasn't that what he _was_?

Alex shook his head and headed across the roof towards Ragland's morgue, hands in his pockets as he carelessly hopped from one roof to another. He wondered what it would be like to have a real conversation with someone. Someone who isn't sobbing or begging for their lives, who isn't trembling in fear or revulsion, someone who treated him like Alex and not like viral strand DX-1118 C.

And then he wondered why he cared.

* * *

**A/N: **_I have hereby decided that these will be a bunch of connected one-shots, because I have enough plot-stories going on already to make my head implode. Pretty sure they'll all be from Alex's POV, since it's HIS character study, after all. They won't all be serious, but it's hard to be light and fluffy when your main character is a sociopathic personification of the world's most deadly bioweapon. Just sayin'._


	3. 2 The Elevator Scene

**The Elevator Scene**

_You Know the One_

* * *

Karen Parker was a name Alex had almost forgotten about in his rush to save Manhattan from complete and utter annihilation. But when he'd caught word that she was _still in the city_, that old rage and fury burned beneath his skin and he struggled just to remain even moderately human. Revenge had become an ideal he hadn't thought himself capable of, but for Karen… he thought he could manage it.

What she had done was _personal_. She had been the only person other than Dana that he had allowed himself to trust. Karen and he—_Alex—_had been… together. To him, that _meant_ something. The fragments of sounds and images that remained of Alex Mercer's life hadn't painted the ex-scientist as a man capable of love for anyone but himself, but Blacklight held out hope that _something_ in this screwed up city could still _mean_ anything. He'd brushed aside the suspicious glances she'd given him, ignored the prickling on his skin whenever she was within arm's reach, and pretended not to notice the tremor in her voice or the scent of deception that had made the virus within him bristle aggressively.

He'd thought he was collecting samples for a cure—_ironic, considering such a thing would _kill_ him. _But then Cross had fallen from the ceiling and he knew. He _knew_.

Karen Parker had betrayed him, and for that she had to die.

Locating the warehouse was simple, following the scientist's memories as they scraped against his skull like nails on glass. He slipped in through a door on the roof; it had been locked, but a thin scrap of metal was nothing to a man who played tug-of-war with a tank on a daily basis. There were only a handful of guards between him and his prey, and they fell before they had even known they were under attack. The hall was littered with destroyed desks and furniture, papers and vials strewn across the empty rooms he peered into as he passed them; each room could have been a miniature battle zone. Had they been searching for something, or was this simply Blackwatch's chosen method of operation?

To utterly destroy something before it had a chance to become a threat?

He paused at a bolted door a few flights down, every muscle going rigid. He could _smell_ her. Roses and honey and blood. He growled at the door, fingers flexing to relieve the tension of the fists he'd curled them into, and was about to kick the door in and tear her in half when he paused.

This had been personal. It wasn't just a routine mission to kill the target and move on. Karen had _betrayed_ him, and had earned herself her own level of hell for doing so. He wanted her alone, somewhere small and isolated, where no one would be able to interrupt them even if she screamed. He wanted her to feel trapped, with nowhere to run, like he had been.

_The elevator._

He isn't sure which of the myriad voices in his head had suggested it. It had sounded like his _own_ voice, although he certainly hadn't given the thought much credit. He was not the only one in his asylum of flesh and whispers that wanted Karen Parker dead.

Alex smirked and let his form shift as he pulled the Blackwatch Officer's skin over his own. He carefully undid the bolt so that it wouldn't break, and the door swung open soundlessly. His eyes locked on her immediately, and he tensed with the effort of _not_ leaping at her like an animal and cleaving her head from her shoulders. Her back was to him as she poured over the laptop and myriad data reports spread before her like a feast. Even from behind, he could tell she was on the verge of exhaustion; her shoulders were hunched, her movements jerky and erratic, and he could hear her breathing as a slow and labored thing.

Oddly fitting that she would attempt to work herself to death before he so much as laid a hand on her.

It was simple to fall into the role of the skin he wore and take her by the arm, ignoring her startled yelp or jump in her seat. "We've been compromised," Alex ground out past the static and distortion of the compressive Blackwatch helmet. Karen stared at him wide-eyed, already twitching out of the chair. "Mercer knows you're on the payroll. We're evacuating."

"Oh, Jesus…" she breathed, letting him haul her suddenly-limp form from the chair and towards the elevator behind them. Alex could hear her heartbeat spike and grinned beneath the helmet. She was right to fear him. "You know what he can do," she hurried on, voice growing more frantic once Alex slammed his fist onto the elevator's controls to start its slow journey to ground level. She backed herself into the corner, eyes fixed on the doors as if Alex planned to pry them open and jump inside. "Oh Goddammit. He'll kill me."

_You wish it were that easy,_ Alex snarled, grateful she could not see his face. She would be lucky if he decided killing her was _enough_.

The elevator bucked in place, the harsh screech of metal jarring enough for Alex to actually take his eyes off of her and glance up at the red light flooding the small chamber. Was it really going to be this simple? Was she really going to be _trapped_ here with him? Alex felt his lip twitch into a smile. He couldn't have planned it better if he'd _tried_.

Karen's pulse skyrocketed as she stared wide-eyed at the alternating dance of darkness and crimson. She gripped the railing as if it alone could prevent her from floating off into space, eyes locking on the control panel in front of her. "Oh, my God. Oh, my God, he's _here_," she whimpered, pressing back into the corner. The elevator jerked in place and she whirled to face the wall, and Alex stepped closer to her exposed back. She was making this too easy. "He's in the building," she gasped, hand flying to her mouth.

Alex let the disguise fall from his skin in a mass of writhing motion, the skittering sound the only break in the silence. The grin on his face was just a tad too wide to be entirely human as he slid up to her back, feeling her go rigid as she _sensed_ his presence even before he spoke, his low voice black with hate and victory.

"I know."

Roses and honey and blood.


	4. 3 Mercy

New York truly was the city that never sleeps. Even now, with Infected terrorizing the handful of survivors and struggling to break into the Yellow and Green Zones, Alex can hear the scream of helicopters being dragged out of the sky by overzealous Hunters and the shouting of marines as they struggle to keep a lid on the growing infestation slowly overtaking Manhattan.

Silence is not something Alex Mercer had ever been subjected to. Not since he awoke in the morgue and knew only that the entire city was out for his blood.

So it is with some curiosity that he raises his head and searches the suddenly silent streets below him for any sign of life. It's a foreign thing, silence. Like a calm before the storm.

When the scream pierces the air it's almost as if it had been the rallying cry for hundreds of Infected. They begin to pour out of buildings as they charge down the street below, roaring and slobbering and snarling as they shoulder aside obstacles in their frenzy.

It was not a scream with which Alex was familiar. He had heard the cries of men in pain, of dying men, of Infected cut off from the Hive mind, but this was something else. Something new.

Alex swiveled on his heel and sprinted across the rooftop towards where he'd heard the sound, easily keeping pace with the horde of Infected below. It only takes him a brief moment to pinpoint the source.

A small band of marines were running for the nearby base, firing blindly over their shoulders at the pack of Hunters on their tail. But it is the small person one of the men is carrying in one arm that catches Alex's attention. A child? In the Red Zone? The child is quite clearly the source of the screams, too high pitched to have been men and too loud to have been an adult.

Before he knows what he's doing, he's calculated the distance between the marines and the base and the speed of their pursuers and he knows. He knows the marines won't make it, that he Infected swarming beneath him will overtake their prey and the night will again fall silent after a single note of discord.

He pauses on the rooftop as the child screams again, broken by sobs that reach him even from such a distance. Without thought, he leaps from the edge and feels the blade grow from his arm. He brings it over his head and impacts the center of the group of Hunters like a guillotine, severing the unfortunate one that broke his landing in two before eviscerating the nearest three. He can hear the panicked marines over the roaring of the Hunters, shouting into their radios that ZEUS has made contact, and then he hears gunfire.

Gunfire that mows into the first wave of Infected footsoldiers and pings almost harmlessly off the Hunters separating Alex from the humans. One or two bullets slam into his side with all the force of a child throwing a pebble, and he ignores them in favor of ripping the rest of the Hunters to shreds.

He hears other screams now. Adult screams. The screams of a marine who is looking death in the face and goes down fighting.

He shifts his blade to his claws and slams them into the earth, sending up a graveyard of spikes that impale the remaining Infected and stop just short of the marine's line. He stands, claws flexing at his sides, and turns ice-blue eyes towards the remaining humans pointing guns at him with trembling hands.

He is the only thing still standing amidst the carnage he'd wrought. He idly notes that only two of the marines are still alive, the child clutching the leg of one of them, tears streaming down her face. He twitches one of the blades forming the claws on his right arm and takes a step towards them, and the marines take the appropriate step back, guns shaking as if they aren't sure whether to fire or not.

Alex transfers his gaze to the young girl, who has her eyes locked on him, green eyes blown wide in shock and fear. She's staring at the shadows of his hood. Not his claws, or the carnage around him, but at his face. At where the glow of his eyes is visible even in the darkness.

He looks back at the marines and flexes the claws on his other hand, debating with himself on what to do with them. Had they been any other men, and had this been any other day, he would have killed and consumed them without a thought. But they had a child, and for some reason that _meant_ something.

Without taking his eyes off them, he lets his biomass rework his arms into a more human shape and is rewarded by a slight lowering of the rifles' nozzles. He flicks his gaze into infected vision and scans them. The child and the marine she's holding are still clean, but the other is a light orange. He will not live long.

Alex takes another step forward and the marines tense but don't move back, and he takes that as encouragement as he approaches slowly, as if walking towards a frightened deer.

He can hear the men on the radios shouting at them for information, for ZEUS' location, but the marines make no move to answer it or reply. Alex shifts his gaze towards the infected marine, every cell in his body tensing with its desire to rip him apart, to spare him the agony, to consume what remains to make himself stronger.

Alex lets the orange tint to his eyes from the infected vision fade away and stares at the doomed man. "You," he says, and his voice alone is enough to make the two men jerk their guns back up towards his face as if that would stop him should he choose to attack.

The infected marine slumps, letting his gun hang from numb fingers and point at the ground, and Alex can see the comprehension in his shuttered eyes. He knows. He has to know. "How long?" he asks quietly, and his partner looks at him in surprise.

"Soon."

The marine sucks in a breath and glances towards the others. "Peter, take her to the base. I'll… catch up."

'Peter' opens his mouth to argue before it dawns in his eyes and he clasps the other man on the shoulder with a grim nod, before picking up the girl and walking away without looking back. The girl peeks over his shoulder at them and Alex holds her gaze until they vanish around a corner.

The infected marine lets his rifle fall to the ground with a clatter of metal and concrete. He meets Alex's steady gaze and takes a breath. "Make it quick?"

Alex lets his left arm reform into a blade and dips his head once, watching as the man closes his eyes and turns his head away.

As Alex's blade tears through the man's neck and his headless body crumples to the ground, he stares at the crimson staining his blade. He doesn't hate the marines. They're just men doing what they believe is right; doing what they're told to do.

He isn't a merciful being. He doesn't care about the fate of the city or its inhabitants. He is a harbinger of death, of destruction.

He is a murderer, a monster, a terrorist.

But sometimes he remembers a woman named Dana. A man named Ragland. An officer named Cross. He isn't merciful.

But death can be a mercy, too.


	5. 4 Canine

_**Note: **This one is not serious. Not at all. In fact, it's rather fluffy._

* * *

There weren't a lot of things that could surprise him anymore. He'd seen mutated civilians gnawing on their own limbs, rippling gorilla monsters shouldering aside tanks like they were made of cardboard, military men injecting themselves with the virus just so they could gain in strength… hypocrites.

But of all the things he had expected to find in the alley where he'd dragged his latest Blackwatch victim, a puppy was not one of them.

It had been the whine that first got his attention. The Blackwatch soldier, too, had paused momentarily in his struggling as they both turned towards a pile of debris where the sound had come from. There was a moment of uneasy silence as they waited, and then the sound came again. Alex flicked into thermal vision and scanned the pile, seeing a small orange spot in the otherwise dull refuse. Too small to be human, then. He dismissed the sound as Not a Threat and turned back to the renewed struggles of his prey.

"Wait—"

Wait? Alex Mercer did not wait. He slammed his blade through the unfortunate soldier's torso and rent him in half, letting his consuming tendrils drag what remained of him into himself before turning back towards the pile.

Alex stepped around the pile and stared at the small fuzzy thing staring back up at him. All thought ground to a halt. What _was_ this? It was too small to be a Hunter, too animal to be a child… One of the numerous people in his head nudged him and whispered _dog_.

Dog. What was a dog doing in a Red Zone? The… _puppy_, one of his voices whispered, whined again. It was a strange noise, designed to stir up emotions of pity and compassion. Neither of those existed in ZEUS. It was too small to really be of any threat to him, and almost all of the numerous personalities that made up his consciousness baulked at the idea of harming it.

It whined again, and this time Alex took a better look at it. It was all but skin and bones; oddly enough, it seemed to have known better than to eat the remains of Infected lying around. So it was a smart dog. That was something, at least.

It shuffled over to his foot and licked his shoe, and Alex frowned. Why wasn't it afraid of him? Even a dog should know that he was dangerous, a predator, not safe. He had thought it was smart.

He sifted through the few jagged memories he could recall of his life before dying in Penn Station. He'd had a dog once for a few years. He had not disliked its company.

The puppy began to gnaw on his foot, and what could have been a smile twitched at his lip. So it was attempting to display dominance. Good. He bent over and picked it up by its scruff, staring at it as it lolled its tongue and wagged its tail weakly.

He guessed that if it were clean, it would be very fuzzy. And black. It was a good color for a dog. It would help him blend in while he hunted. It stopped panting and began to stare at him with the same intensity he was showing it. Was it learning from him? Alex grinned and the small dog barked.

He put the dog under one arm and leapt for the nearest roof, kicking off and sprinting over the buildings with the puppy's tongue hanging out as they flew. So it wasn't afraid of heights.

He could work with that.

* * *

The dog would need food. That would be a challenge, seeing as how the military rationed the food supplies and he'd have to break into the base to get any. He frowned, looking at the puppy sitting by his foot, thumping the ground with its little tail. What was he supposed to do with it while he went in the base? He supposed he could leave it on the roof; it couldn't possibly go anywhere.

Except down.

Puppies were not exceptionally intelligent when it came to things like gravity.

He frowned harder. He had not brought the puppy all the way here just for it to fall off a roof and hurt itself. He would have to bring it with him.

Into the military base.

_Shit._

Alex let the Blackwatch soldier's skin shimmer over his own, amused when the puppy yelped and scrambled back, cocking its head before trotting back and sniffing his new boot. Its tongue lolled out again and he barked. So it knew who he was.

That could be dangerous, if it wasn't just a dog.

He picked the dog back up in his arms and jumped, impacting the ground like a missile and freezing, wondering if anyone had heard that and would come running. He hurried out of the alley as if nothing was wrong and walked calmly towards the base with the dog in his arms.

Hopefully no one would ask questions.

"The hell? Is that a dog?"

So much for that idea. Alex bristled as one of the marines headed over and bent to look at the black puppy he was holding. He hated being so close to humans with guns. Especially now. He somehow doubted the puppy was bulletproof. To his surprise, the marine began speaking like an idiot to the dog and scratched its ears, making ridiculous baby noises.

Pretty soon he had a veritable crowd of marines—_within devastator range_—all cooing over the puppy and acting nothing like the hardened marines he had come to expect from them. He was thankful for the Blackwatch mask, else they might be confused at the dumbfounded expression on his face.

"Where'd you find the widdle guy?" one of them asked, and Alex stared blankly before realizing that this could be his ticket in.

"In an alley," he replied honestly. "It needs food."

If the marines noticed his curt response, they didn't bring it up. Instead, they began to herd him towards the base, taking turns petting it and rubbing it behind the ears.

Was this all it took to be guided into military bases? A hungry puppy?

Alex wondered if he could use this to his advantage. A viral detector blooped warningly but not a single marine turned to pay it any heed.

Yes. He could definitely use this to his advantage.

Pretty soon there was a can of something on the ground and the puppy was happily munching away while Alex stood in a daze nearby, looking around the base. He hadn't even needed to consume the commander. They'd just let him waltz right in.

"What's his name?" a marine with a huge rocket launcher asked casually, and Alex scrambled for a reply.

_It's a puppy. Dog. Canine. Cane. Nine. Cain? Cain._ "His name is Cain."

Ironically, someone in his head chose that moment to remind him that was the name of the first human murderer. Alex smirked beneath his helmet.

"Little guy was hungry," Random Marine #34 stated the obvious for all those listening, and Alex just watched as the puppy ambled through the legs of marines to sit by his foot again. So it knew its master. Good.

A supersoldier had been staring at him for the past few minutes, and then began to walk over and Alex cursed under his breath. It stopped a few feet away, looked at him, then at the puppy sitting on his foot, then back at Alex and walked away.

Alex blinked. He supposed it was beyond their comprehension that the great ZEUS would have a puppy.

He picked up the newly christened _Cain_ and quickly talked his way out of the base, slipping around a corner and vanishing before the marines could pin him down. He paused on a rooftop a good distance away and let his normal skin shift back into place, the puppy squirming for a moment in his grip before settling again.

Alex looked at the puppy. It had somehow tricked the soldiers into believing it and its master were completely innocent. He had been in the base. If he'd wanted to, he could have torn it apart from the inside out and no one would be the wiser. Cain. It was smarter than he'd given it credit for.

The puppy licked his hand and Alex frowned. It would have to stop trying to eat him though.

* * *

**A/N: **_Why yes. Yes I did just give Alex a puppy. I DID say not all of these would be serious. ;)_


	6. 5 Cain

Alex had reached the conclusion that the dog simply wasn't afraid of him. He'd even gone so far as to threaten it with his claws, and the puppy had just licked the lethal biological metal with complete confidence. Alex had rewarded its courage by not throwing it off the roof.

Alex had also reached the conclusion that the puppy was a master manipulator.

All it had to do was stare at him long enough and whine, and he would eventually give in and feed it. When he stared at people, all they did was scream. Maybe the dog could teach him how to do that.

He frowned as he watched Cain roll around on the roof. What did people do with dogs? A million images assaulted him and he staggered, growling irritably. Cain paused at the sound, ears pricked forward, and then went back to rolling.

He had to walk it? Couldn't the dog walk itself? He supposed it was still an infant dog and lacked the ability to decide for itself what it wanted to do. He looked around the rooftop. Well, the only place he could really go that would be appropriate for a puppy was Central Park, and it was right in the middle of a Red Zone. Maybe he'd be lucky and there wouldn't be a bunch of Hunters or tanks parked there today.

He scooped up the puppy, irritated when it licked him again, and began parkouring towards the park. It really liked to lick him. Maybe he tasted good? Alex paused on a roof and looked at his hand. Briefly, he considered licking himself to make sure, but shook that off with a startled noise. Was he actually about to _lick his own hand?_ The puppy was a crafty one, to be sure.

To his relief, the park was pretty empty. The few staggering Infected knew by now that if they didn't stumble in his direction, he wouldn't be bothered to kill them. Cain, however, was _ecstatic. _He bounded off immediately, and Alex kept pace at a steady walk. The puppy immediately set about the rather arduous task of sniffing everything within a mile radius, and Alex just walked behind him, amused. Hunters tracked by scent as well. Greene must have modeled them after dogs. Alex watched as Cain barked and scrambled back towards him, bounding around his feet.

A memory touched his consciousness and Alex frowned. Play? The dog wanted to play? With _what?_

_Throw a stick._

A stick. Alex shook his head, but dutifully grabbed a nearby branch and almost hurled it before remembering that if _he_ threw a stick, it was likely to wind up in Kansas. So he tossed it as softly as he could and it still went flying a good ten feet. The puppy yipped and ran after it, grabbing it with small teeth and prancing back with its prize, depositing it at his feet.

_Fetch._

So Cain could fetch. Alex wondered if he could train the dog to fetch other things, like weapons or people. Ten more throws and Alex was amazed the dog wasn't bored yet.

It had an incredibly short attention span.

Then, spontaneously, Cain was done playing fetch and proceeded to gnaw on his foot again. Alex frowned and shook his foot, and the puppy rolled on its back, kicking its legs and still trying to bite him.

It was… _wrestling?_ With _him?_

He crouched by the wriggling ball of black fur and let his left arm reform into a whipfist, and began to tickle the dog with it.

The ridiculousness of the situation registered, but Alex didn't care. He was… training it.

Right.

* * *

"Uh, Red Crown? This is Private Jonson. I've got a visual on ZEUS in Zone 7."

"_Sitrep, Jonson."_

"It's playing fetch, sir."

"_Fetch."_

Jonson lowered his rifle and just stared. ZEUS, Alex Mercer, number one terrorist in America, walking bioweapon that _ate people_, was playing fetch with a puppy. He wasn't entirely convinced he wasn't dreaming.

"Yes, sir. With a dog."

There was a noticeable pause on the line. _"Are you sure about that, Private?"_

"Yes, sir." Jonson blinked. Now it almost looked like he was… _playing_ with it. Like a normal person. Well, a normal person with a clawed tentacle for an arm. "Orders?"

"…_do not engage. It could be a trap. Fall back to rendezvous alpha and await further instruction."_

"Yes, sir."

* * *

**A/N: **_Short one while I stare at my laptop trying to come up with a plot bunny for "Consuming Direct Control."_


	7. 6 Miracle

The phone call was unexpected. Alex actually stumbled when it went off from inside his pocket, and almost dropped Cain in the process before scrabbling back to a steady position on the rooftop. He set Cain down and fished around until he found the irritating sound, staring at it.

Ragland had given him this in case something happened at the morgue / clinic where he worked, but he'd never actually called him on it before. Alex stared at the phone as it rang. There were only two reasons Ragland would call him on this phone instead of waiting for him to randomly show up like he often did at various times during the week.

One, something had happened to Dana.

Or two, _something had happened to Dana._

He snapped the phone open, just barely resisting the urge to crush it in frustration, and juggled it into the correct position by his ear courtesy of a dozen fragmented memories of doing such. "What?" he growled out, more alert and ready to rip something apart with his bare hands than he could ever remember being.

"_She's asking for you."_

Alex froze, and the phone clattered to the rooftop as Cain sniffed it curiously. Dana was awake? Dana was… _awake._ And _asking for him._ Him. The monster that had killed her brother and stolen his skin. The beast that had lured the Leader Hunter to her apartment and gotten her kidnapped, that had put her in a coma for four months.

She was asking for _him?_

Alex leapt from the roof for the next, scrambled to get his balance, heard a bark from the previous roof, swore, and jumped back to snatch Cain into his arms before sprinting off again. Manhattan had never been larger than it was at that moment, seeming to stretch endlessly before him, yet he reached Ragland's lab in record time. To anyone who had looked up as he leapt from roof to roof, he would have been nothing but a blur.

He burst through the doors like a thunderclap, blowing one of them off their hinges and into the far wall, Cain barking excitedly in his grip as he all but ran through the morgue to the room where Ragland kept Dana. He paused in front of her door. Was she awake in there? Was she sitting up, waiting for him? Asking for him?

Had she forgiven him? Was she healthy? Uninjured? He would tear Ragland _apart_ if she was injured in any way.

A flash of men in hazmat suits and polished metal walls passed behind his eyes and he snarled. She wouldn't be like him. They may have both awoken in a morgue, but she would remember. She had to.

With more care than he'd done a lot of things, he pushed the door open with one hand and kept Cain aloft with the other. Ragland was the first thing he saw, holding a clipboard and writing something down.

And then he saw her and nothing else mattered. She was sitting up on the cot she'd been laying on, paler than he remembered, but _alive. _Awake. Anything he'd been about to say caught in his throat and he just stared at her. What was he supposed to say? What was he supposed to _do?_

Cain chose that moment to bark and they both turned to look at him. Dana's face lit up with a smile and Alex stepped into the room, Cain wiggling in his effort to get free. Dana's eyes transferred to the puppy and she hesitated, looking confused.

"Alex, is that a puppy?"

Alex worked his jaw a moment before he could think. That's what she wants to ask? About the _dog?_ Well, it was a relatively safe subject. "Yes. His name is Cain."

Cain leapt from his arms and bounded to Dana, hopping up in his lap, and Alex almost stepped forward to yank him away. What if he hurt her? What if he did something that made her unhappy? But Dana just smiled wider and hugged the puppy close, and Alex decided that saving the dog in the alley had been a good idea.

Alex stood uncertainly nearby as he watched his… sister… and the dog that could manipulate Blackwatch into seeing what wasn't there. They were so fragile. He took a step back. Dana looked happy. Cain looked happy. He couldn't give that to her; he was a monster, a virus that consumed humans and wore their skin. He leaned against the doorframe and watched them on the bed.

He couldn't give her happiness, but he could give her something that could.

Cain would need a friend, after all.


	8. 7 Collision

"Collette will be here in an hour, Alex. Did you walk Cain yet?"

Two months. Dana had been awake for two months and she was already bossing him around. Alex sighed and shook his head.

"Can't Cain walk himself?" he grumbled back, and Dana materialized in the open doorway as if summoned by his less-than-enthusiastic response.

"Cain is a dog, Alex. So no; no he cannot walk himself." She fixed him with the Stare of Disapproval and Alex felt his resolve crumble. He could deny her nothing, and she knew it. "Now hurry up! I want to have time to get you out of that hoodie and into something respectable before she gets here."

Alex pretended not to have heard the second half of that statement as he prodded Cain towards the door with the side of his foot, watching the puppy scrabble in excitement once it realized where he was being taken.

As he followed Cain's hyperactive jaunt towards the small patch of grass Alex had claimed for this purpose, he couldn't help but be a bit worried about Dana's new 'friend.' Alex had never met her, obviously, but apparently 'Collette' was a nurse at the hospital where Dana had undergone her physical therapy, and they had become immediate friends.

Dana had claimed it was a 'girl thing' and Alex 'shouldn't try to use his feeble male brain to understand the particulars of it.'

He had acknowledge the wisdom in the statement, and not prodded further.

But now he was supposed to _play nice_ with Dana's new friend and her family, and if there was one thing Alex Mercer was not good at, it was playing nice. When he brought Cain back inside, Dana was already standing ready and took him by the jacket as she dragged him inside.

He didn't dare resist her, more out of fear of her hurting herself than any obligation to obey his younger sibling. Or, if he wanted to be morosely technical about it, his _older_ sibling.

By twenty three years.

With a sigh, he stood stiffly in the living room as Dana tore through 'his' room like a whirlwind. He still had trouble thinking of it as _his_ room, since he hadn't really spent more than ten collective minutes in there in the past year. She emerged looking disgruntled and he glanced at her in time to find her standing with hands on hips, both eyebrows raised expectantly.

"Alex?"

"…yes, Dana?"

"Where the hell are all your clothes?"

Alex glanced at his jacket. "I'm wearing them." Well, that wasn't _strictly_ accurate. His clothing was simply another layer of biomass shifted to _resemble_ clothing. He'd never taken it off.

"Really, Alex? Really?" Dana threw her hands up in exasperation. "Fine. _Fine_. Wear your damn hoodie for all I care. Not like she doesn't already think we're a family of Neanderthals."

Alex shifted uneasily, pulling his hood lower over his face. Dana had the unique ability to make him feel embarrassed about absolutely anything. This included, apparently, his habit of staying in his 'default' outfit when he wore his… _Alex_ skin.

He looked up at his sister, who was digging through the kitchen for something. Alex made sure to keep the fridge stocked with anything and everything he thought she might like; it was a pain in the ass hauling groceries and scavenged goods over rooftops from the yet-to-be-pillaged Red Zone, but it was worth it to see her with her mouth full of ice cream or her face covered in chocolate.

"…what should I be wearing?" he asked quietly, and was rewarded by Dana turning, cheeks puffed out and probably full of cookies. He had learned early on that his little sister had a serious sweet tooth, and if he didn't cater to it often enough, she'd attempt to verbally disembowel him.

She looked him up and down. "Pretty much anything that isn't _that_," she pointed out helpfully, going back to the fridge and dismissing him from her List of Immediate Concerns.

Alex looked down at himself, spreading his arms, brows furrowing. With a flick of thought he watched his biomass rearrange itself into the blue tee and jeans his latest victim had been wearing. He looked back at Dana, who still had her back to him. "Is this better?"

Dana turned, one brow cocked, and then her eyes bugged out and she dropped whatever it was she'd been holding. "Where the hell did you get those?" she demanded, sounding indignant.

"I…" Alex hesitated, and was saved from having to make up some kind of excuse when the doorbell rang. Dana squealed and brushed past him, hurrying towards the door and fussing with her hair on the way.

"How do I look?" she asked him quickly, and then without letting him reply pulled the door open. "Collette! I'm so glad you could make it!" Alex listened as she made a strange noise that he chose to equate with happiness. "And is this Amaya?"

_Amaya?_ Alex bristled, agitated. He hadn't known there was going to be _more_ of Dana's friends coming. Great. Another chance for him to mess something up and make Dana cry.

"Hi miss Dana," came a small voice, and Alex hesitated, frowning. He stepped around the corner, peering at the visitors, and frowned harder. 'Amaya' was very small. And short.

And young. And holding a well-loved pink rabbit by the ears.

_Shit. A kid? What do I do with a _kid_?_ Alex panicked. What was he supposed to say? Damn… now they were staring at him. He was probably supposed to introduce himself. Or was that Dana's job?

Dana must have seen the internal argument written on his face, because she smoothly stepped back to Alex's side and grabbed his arm, pulling him forward. Or, she tugged on his wrist and he took a step forward to save her the effort of attempting to move him.

"This is my brother, Alex. Alex, this is Collette and Amaya. Say _hello_, Alex," she murmured in an aside, and Alex looked up at the visitors.

"Hey," he managed, struggling to make his voice sound more human than it was. Collette offered him a polite smile, but Amaya had no such compunctions and studied him openly.

Dana rolled her eyes and hurried to Collette again. "Come in, come in! Will James be meeting us here, or should we go ahead and go?"

Alex growled low, and Dana sent him a warning glare. Collette didn't seem to have heard it, but Amaya's eyes bugged out further. _James?_ How many damn people had Dana invited out? And why was she dragging him along?

"He'll be here shortly, I'm sure," Collette agreed amiably, following Dana deeper into the house and leaving Alex alone with the kid.

Great.

"You're tall," Amaya informed him, and Alex looked down at her.

"I know."

"Daddy's tall, too," she smiled wide, as if this was some great accomplishment, and Alex didn't bother trying to smile back. Dana had told him that his smile tended to creep her out. The statement had made him frown. "Are you a army man, too?"

Alex bristled. "No. I'm not."

Amaya pouted. "Oh. Well that's okay. Daddy says he's a army man so no one else has to be."

Alex hesitated. That was actually a pretty nice sentiment. Much nicer than the reason most of Blackwatch gave for their involvement in the Infection. "That's nice," he offered lamely. He wasn't very social on the best of days, and he'd never had to entertain a kid before. He hoped he was doing okay. "So… your name's Amaya?"

Amaya made a face. "Call me Maya. It's nicer." She pointed at Alex. "You're miss Dana's big brother. 'Lex."

"Alex," he corrected.

"'Lex," she repeated, face set in serious lines.

"_Ah-lex,_" he said again, enunciating it carefully.

"'_Lex,_" came her equally enunciated response, and Alex sighed.

"Close enough," he grudgingly allowed, and Amaya beamed in response. Alex glanced further into the house, where he could faintly hear Dana and Collette speaking softly in a back room. Probably the kitchen. He resisted the urge to yell for her and ask when they could leave, knowing it would get him nothing but a choice four-letter word and angry shouting.

"Mr. 'Lex?" came that small voice, accompanied by a tugging at his leg. He looked down and saw her pulling on his 'jeans,' brow furrowed. "Are you sick?" She pointed at his face, which Alex was sure was nice and pallid. _This_ was why he wore hoods.

He wasn't sure how to answer that. "Yes," he finally admitted. He was pretty sure being a living virus counted as being sick.

Amaya frowned. "Is it the bad sick? Mommy says I'm not supposed to talk to people with the bad sick."

Alex hesitated, looking back into the house. "It's… no. It's different." Maya graced him with a wide smile.

"Good! Daddy would be mad if I was talking to the bad sick." She frowned thoughtfully up at him, and Alex mused that he'd rarely seen such a serious expression even on adults. Finally she held up the pink rabbit she was holding in her fist and proffered it towards him. "Mr. Hoppy will make you feel better." She lowered her voice to a whisper, shielding her mouth with her other hand. "_He's magic_. But don't tell Daddy."

Alex felt something tighten in his chest where his heart should be and furrowed his brow at the sensation. It hadn't been… _pain_… exactly, since he didn't feel pain anymore, but it was distinctly odd and he decided he didn't like it. But, she was still holding the rabbit out to him, and Alex trusted his control over himself enough to not shred the thing simply by holding it. He crouched down and took the rabbit in as gentle a grip as he could manage, not daring to close his fingers around it, and held it in both palms like something incredibly precious. Maya deposited the animal in his waiting hands with a beaming smile, and Alex felt his lip twitching into a smile of his own. Since she didn't run away screaming, he assumed he'd managed to not be a 'seriously creepy-ass dude' as Dana had called him once.

"Thank you," Alex muttered, feeling uneasy, and Maya nodded affably.

"He'll make you better, 'Lex," she informed him, nodding again. Then she fixed him with a pointed stare. "Take good care of him. I want him back later."

Alex cracked a grin at that, and Maya grinned back. He pressed one of his hands over his chest where his heart used to be and affected a solemn expression. "I will protect him as if he were my own."

"Good," Maya agreed seriously. Her eyes flicked over his shoulder where he was crouched and she smiled politely. "Are you sick too, miss Dana?"

Alex stood abruptly, feeling awkward, and swiveled on his heel to find Dana and Collette staring at him as if he'd grown a second head. He cleared his throat nervously, still holding the pink rabbit carefully in his hands, and met Dana's incredulous stare with a challenging one of his own.

"What?" he demanded, and his voice was enough to break the spell and Collette just smiled wide, approvingly, while Dana stared at him like she was trying to figure him out. He fidgeted beneath her scrutinizing stare, and glanced down at Maya out of the corner of his eye, turning slightly to face her. "Er… Maya? Could you hold onto Mr. Hoppy for me? I don't want to get him… dirty."

Maya nodded twice and he passed her back the rabbit. Once it was out of his hands, Dana seemed able to recognize him again and smiled.

"James called a few minutes ago; he'll meet us downstairs." She pinned Alex with a Look. "_Downstairs_, Alex."

Alex bristled, but he understood her meaning. No windows, no rooftops, no sprinting or climbing up ninety degree angles… he deflated, hunching his shoulders like a scolded puppy as Dana smirked in triumph. He could see the logic in not letting her new friends know that her big brother was the personification of the Blacklight virus, but that didn't mean he had to enjoy it.

"I'll head down, then," Alex mumbled, already forgotten by the women who had begun to fuss over Maya while Dana made sure Cain had food and water. Alex shrugged and slipped out the door, heading for the stairs. He'd rather not brave the elevator. The combined force of his total mass was probably over the load limit, regardless of any memories he'd rather leave forgotten.

He pushed open the main doors of the rather abandoned apartment building he'd claimed for Dana and himself, and almost ran into the back of a rather large man that was hanging around outside.

_Must be James. _Alex coughed into his fist, more out of habit than any real need to cough, and the man turned expectantly. Alex's eyes dropped to the combat knife strapped to the man's boot and the pistol at his hip, and decided this man was not quite as stupid as the majority of people walking around New York Zero. Alex himself didn't need to carry weapons, since he _was_ a weapon, but from the appraising look the large man staring him down had on his face, Alex was not meeting expectations.

"You must be Dana's brother," 'James' finally said, breaking the silence, and Alex nodded stiffly.

"Alex," he introduced himself shortly. "Collette and Maya are still up with Dana," Alex replied in as friendly a voice as he could manage. He didn't do very well, if the man's expression and slight tensing was any indication. Well this relationship was off to an _excellent_ start. Alex fumbled for a topic, knowing Dana would want him to at least come off as moderately approachable and _human._ "Your daughter is very…" he searched for the right word desperately, finally settling on "friendly."

He felt like an idiot for just saying it aloud, and the man obviously thought the same, since he didn't smile or reply to that. Alex coughed again and leaned against the wall by the door, averting his gaze.

"So what do you do, Alex?"

Alex bristled, flicking silver-blue eyes at the walking mountain currently interrogating him. He resisted the urge to form claws or armor and make some smart-ass remark about being the city's glorified pest-control service. "I—was a geneticist. Before the Outbreak," he growled out, daring James with his eyes to probe further.

"Ah," James said, as if he understood. "One of those science-y types, huh?"

Alex felt his lip twitch into a grin, and noticed with amusement that unlike his daughter, James didn't find comfort in the expression. "Yes… you could say that."

He was saved from a potentially fatal conversation by Dana's appearance at the door with Collette and Maya in tow. Dana took one look at Alex leaning against the wall, arms folded, expression hard, and immediately slipped between the two men to diffuse the tension.

"It's good to see you again, James," Dana smiled easily, and Alex noted that James' smile was only a little bit forced as opposed to the one Alex had gotten. "I see you met Alex. Cheerful, isn't he?"

"You could say that," James parroted back, eyes on Alex before he looked down at Collette, who had taken his arm. He looked even bigger next to her slim frame, and like a giant beside Maya. Alex briefly toyed with the idea that the man was a super-soldier out of his armor. "Ready to go?"

"Dana was telling us about this restaurant in the Yellow Zone; it sounded wonderful," Collette smiled, and James gave her a genuine one in return.

Alex, however, was frowning. The Yellow Zone? What was Dana thinking? He took her arm and pulled her a few feet away, ignoring for the moment that he had wanted to be careful with her, and lowered his voice. "The Yellow Zone?" he muttered, and Dana made a face up at him.

"Jeez, Alex. Have a little faith. I know better than to pick somewhere with…" she flicked her eyes to the others, who were watching them curiously. "…_you know what_."

Alex grunted, not convinced, but released her and Dana gave him another Look before joining the others. She smoothly slipped up to join her friends with an indulgent smile on her face.

"Alex is just overprotective; he doesn't want me anywhere near the Infected."

Collette smiled at that, and James seemed to relax a little. "That's perfectly understandable," Collette nodded. She had, after all, been one of the only ones Ragland had told the truth about Dana's coma.

Alex sighed as he followed them a few paces behind, not really wanting to fake smiles and 'play nice' with these people. All he _wanted_ to do was grab Dana, throw her over his shoulder, and take her back to the safe house where he could keep an eye on her. Greene may have been long dead, but he didn't like the idea of the Infected catching wind that she was awake again. Just in case.

After about a block, he felt something wrap around his fingers and looked down curiously, raising a brow when he saw Maya smiling up at him, her small hand holding his while Mr. Hoppy dangled helplessly from her other hand.

"You looked lonely," she whispered, glancing back up at the adults walking ahead of them.

"I…" Alex faltered, shaking his head and nodding at her. "I was. Thank you."

She beamed back at him, squeezing his fingers, but he didn't dare squeeze them back. He had a tendency to break everything he touched, even things he sought to protect. James looked back at them, noticed Maya holding his hand, and narrowed his eyes at Alex but said nothing. There weren't going to be any immediate friendships forming _there_, Alex mused.

Dana had just launched into a rather ribald story about her college days when Alex heard it.

Howling. He froze in place, Maya coming a stop beside him and looking up at him curiously. Alex felt his skin crawl with the need to reform into claws and blades and he held it back through force of will alone.

"Dana," he said plainly, eyes flicking around them as he searched for the source. Dana stopped and turned, took one look at his rigid posture and the inhuman look in his eyes, and she immediately took James' arm.

"Infected," she hissed to him, and to his credit James didn't question her, simply pulled his pistol from his hip as Collette glued herself to his side.

Alex closed his eyes and listened, feeling Maya tugging on his hand.

"'Lex?" she whispered, understanding the tension even if she didn't know the cause. He didn't reply, instead snapping his eyes open as the howl sounded again, close enough for the humans to have heard it. Alex looked down at her, and then took a quick step forward, meaning to hand her over to the others when it happened.

He jerked his head up and saw the Hunter barreling towards them from the top of the nearest building. Without pause, he took Maya by the waist and leapt back, narrowly avoiding being crushed by the falling Infected. The Hunter turned to 'stare' at him, and Alex locked gazes with it, not moving.

Hunters had a personal vendetta against him. They always had. Alex slowly slid one foot back in preparation to run. He couldn't fight the Hunter without endangering Maya, who he was holding with one arm and who had grabbed his shoulder in fright when the Hunter had appeared. The Hunter growled low, taking a step towards him, and Alex heard James' gun unloading into the Hunter's side. Bullets were nothing but irritants to a Hunter, and the thing didn't even turn to acknowledge it was being attacked. Alex saw the tense in its shoulders and kicked off with his leg, sprinting back down the road, hearing the Hunter roar as it gave chase, easily keeping pace with him.

Alex cursed under his breath as Maya began to cry in his arms, and he glanced back in time to see her drop Mr. Hoppy. With another heartfelt curse, he skidded to a stop, bolted back, grabbed the animal, and vaulted over the Hunter in a leap that any gymnast would have been jealous of. He sprinted back to the others, who were watching him with varying levels of shock, not stopping as he locked eyes with James. The man quickly holstered the weapon and Alex didn't break stride as he passed Maya into his arms, immediately swerving to the side to dodge the Hunter's enraged pounce. True to form, it ignored the humans in favor of chasing after him, and Alex growled in irritation.

He could hear gunfire, and assumed James was still shooting at the Hunter, but Alex was focused on how he was expected to kill this thing without further blowing his cover. He had hesitated for a split second as he debated grabbing that mailbox and beating the Hunter into the ground with it, when the Infected put on a burst of speed and slammed into his back, sending him crashing into a wall and buckling the stone with his impact. He lay, dazed, for a few seconds before he heard screaming and jerked upright again. The Hunter had abandoned him once he'd gone through the wall and was barreling back towards the others.

_Dana._ Alex felt his world narrow, and he cast aside his disguise with an inhuman rumble, feeling his familiar hood and jacket form over his skin as claws spread from his arms. He kicked off from the wall and ran full-tilt towards the Hunter, overtaking it moments before it reached Dana and the others. He noticed James standing between them, and admired the man for his bravery before he leapt, claws outstretched, and time slowed to a crawl.

He saw James' eyes widen as he caught sight of Alex bearing down on the Hunter, claws flashing, eyes glowing beneath his hood. He saw Dana's eyes widen too in remembered terror, and Alex slammed into the Hunter's back and bore it to the ground, slinging around its front mid-slide and jerking them into a roll where they tumbled off to the side, safely _away_ from Dana. And her friends.

The Hunter grappled with him briefly, enraged, but his rage was nothing compared to that of ZEUS. Alex felt the Infected bite into his shoulder, but shrugged off the discomfort of what should have been a fatal blow as he rammed claws through the thing's throat and rolled them again, crouching on the Hunter's underside as he tore the thing apart in his fury. It had _dared_ go after Dana?

Alex felt his vision flicker and snap into oranges and yellows as he entered Infected Vision, connecting him to the Hive Mind as he screamed at the Hunter beneath him.

"_MINE," _he yelled through the Hive Mind, and the Hunter quailed beneath him, still alive despite its shredded throat, and Alex felt the rest of the Infected he was connected to shrink back in fear. They were right to fear him. He took the offending Hunter by the neck and tore its head free with a feral roar, and the thing went limp beneath him.

Alex stepped off, bloodied claws flexing, and glared through orange-tinted eyes at the other Infected that had approached, attracted by the sound. The ones he made eye-contact with backed away, and the Hunters that had arrived bowed their heads like cowering dogs before they retreated into corners and onto the rooftops. He waited until he couldn't sense any Infected before dismissing his Vision and his claws, letting his posture relax.

He turned and headed back to the others, and James stepped between them, his gun still raised and aimed at Alex's head. A bullet to the head would do little more than inconvenience him for a moment, but Alex paused regardless, bristling.

Alex growled low, eyes flashing beneath his hood. "Get out of my way," he warned.

"Alex!" Dana dashed out from behind James, throwing her arms around him. Alex held her tight, checking himself before he hurt her, and stepped back, holding her at arms-length and looking her over.

"Are you all right?" he asked, worried. He'd gotten the Hunter that had gone after her, but there could have been others.

Dana smiled reassuringly up at him. "We're fine, Alex. The others didn't dare come close after they watched you beat the crap out of that damn Hunter."

Alex hardened his expression. "I'm taking you home. I knew it wasn't safe for you out here."

Dana scowled and pulled back, hands on her hips. "No, Alex. I am _not_ spending the rest of my life in a glass box like some kind of fragile flower. I am _going_ to dinner, and you are _going_ to like it."

Alex bristled, keeping his eyes locked on hers, before he slumped in defeat, and Dana grinned in triumph. "But Dana…"

"No buts," she interrupted, holding up a hand. "If you're not comfortable, _you_ can go home. But I've been looking forward to this for _weeks_, and one measly Hunter attack isn't going to dissuade me."

Alex looked up and saw James still holding his gun, but it wasn't pointed at his head anymore. Collette was holding an unharmed, if a bit shaken, Maya, with Mr. Hoppy securely in her hands. He locked gazes with James. "Are we going to have a problem?"

James tensed, scowling. "_Dammit._ No. Not if you keep your freaky Infected shit away from my family."

_That 'freaky Infected shit' just saved your asses,_ Alex growled to himself. He nodded outwardly, once, and James hesitantly holstered his weapon again, eyeing him distrustfully. Collette caught his eye and mouthed "thank you," to which Alex nodded, expression softening. Dana rolled her eyes and took his arm, pulling him along.

Alex kept one eye on the Infected keeping their distance from the great ZEUS and one on James' back as they walked.

He was going to have to watch that one.

* * *

**A/N: **_Holy cameos, batman. Obviously AU here, since Collette is still alive and James isn't an Evolved. Was also surprised when this one-shot turned out to be almost four times longer than all the other ones, but OH WELL._

_Wow. I tend to have a lot of characters named "James" in my stories...  
_


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